He touched her hair, like silk, nearly transparent silk. “Were they, Jaire?”
“Oh, yes. She bragged, bragged of your warmth and your attention, and she flaunted her having won you. They were jealous, all of them, and spiteful to her. She is paying now, I suppose — they will be even more cruel, but now she is defenseless.”
He sighed. “No, Jaire, a woman is never defenseless,” he said, realizing that Jaire was indeed a woman, soft and shapely, her body a caress against his, and that he was indeed a man, no matter how differently made or colored. “Besides, she will be Shilaat’s mate, first woman in Orisana.”
“Yes,” Jaire whispered against him; she still clung.
He wrapped his hands around her chill arms. “Take me back to them, Jaire,” he said. “Take me back so that I may apologize, and then eat — I am starved.”
“What will you eat?”
“Mushrooms,” he said. “Mushrooms.”
He followed her back, her hand cool in his, wondering what it was like to be naturally so cool of flesh and body, and then to feel someone who radiated warmth. He had no frame of reference; he had been impressed with the heat of feverish persons — it was pleasant at times, strangely so. But it had not been a genuinely or generally pleasant sensation, because it was not purely physical. His mind had been involved: His reaction to that almost-burning warmth had been colored by his knowledge that this person was sick.
Robert Cleve’s father had died, twisting, sweating, his temperature past 105 Fahrenheit, with his son standing by the bed, holding the hand his father clutched and squeezed.
Jaire moved slowly through the dark labyrinth, and again they passed among her people, and entered the side cavern that led to the home of her family, and again he faced those attentive, eyeless faces. They sat as he had left them, save that now there were no plates on the flat little stone table before each of them. Each head was erect, almost tilted in parted-lip alertness as their Oridorn sixth sense “listened” or “felt” or “saw” his approach with Jaire.
“I am sorry,” he said simply. “As you know, people outside Oridorna do not eat human flesh. For some reason it is a very severe breach of our code. I admit I do not even know why. But I understand its necessity to you, and I apologize for my irrational and unfriendly reaction. I have insulted friends and hosts.”
“I will prepare your plate,” Jaire said, and went away into the other pocket in the stone that served them as kitchen.
Cleve had nearly forgotten; he offered apology and invited challenge and invective; they rejected the offer all around, telling him that barbarous Outside custom did not prevail in Oridorna. Cleve ate. The mushrooms of Oridorna, like those smaller ones of Orisana, tasted like old bread. But he was hungry, and he ate.
“The post of Keeper of the Rocklight, Keeper Zaide, is it an hereditary one?”
The old man nodded. “Yes, Cleve of Earth, and call me Zaide, here among the family. I have learned this thing called nodding, you see.”
“I do see,” Cleve said, “I was trying to decide whether to ask you or not. The message is clear: You have learned some of the customs of my people, I must learn and be tolerant of yours.” And his stomach lurched, and he fought there among the family of Jaire and Zaire a harder battle than he had fought against Bavuraat, struggling desperately to keep his supper down without having to spring to his feet and rush from among them.
Zaide chuckled. “You have mentioned it again. We will not do so, nor will we eat meat in front of you. This thing of tolerance and consideration — it must be mutual. Yes, my post is hereditary. It would have fallen to my son, and thence to Zaire. My son is dead. When I die, Zaire will be Keeper. It is a lonely life. I do not rule in Oridorna — no one does, as there are rulers among the Orisans and those Outside. But insofar as we have authority over others, the son of the Keeper is leader, and the Keeper is … ”
“Outside,” Cleve said, “I think you might be called priest.”
“Perhaps. You must be careful with the sidsorn Zaire has given you, Cleve. It is deadly to you as to the man at whom you point it. Never take off its top. Never hold it so that the flapdoor faces you. To use it, one merely hooks one’s thumb in the loop of gut, and draws it down. The flapdoor at the other end of the box opens. The emanation is released.”
“I assumed as much,” Cleve said, “although I did not try it — I thought it wise to wait for instruction. What is inside?”
Zaide shrugged. “Is that correct?”
“I — sir? What?”
“The shrug.” Zaide raised his thin old shoulders again. He was very thin, with the round little belly, however, of an old man.
Cleve smiled. “Oh. Yes. Thank you.”
“I must teach the children. Inside the box, Cleve, is some of the rockfire. Those who dig it from the mountain die. We have not many of them, and we make another only when one ceases to function. There is a smooth surface inside, too, that directs the ray — Jaire, bring us one of the empty alsidorn.”
She left them to return with one of the little stone deathboxes. She handed it to her grandfather.
“It is safe to open,” Zaide said, handing it to Cleve. Cleve accepted and opened it, not without some trepidation. “A smooth surface inside,” Zaide had told him, “to direct the ray.” Yes. It was a mirror, of some polished stone like basalt or obsidian. It was deep blue, but as Cleve turned it he saw several other shades of blue in its strange depths. There was a space, too, for the rock-light, a small, toothed depression. The teeth would hold it there, glowing safely, as he knew the one in his pouch was glowing, even now. But when the opening in the end of the box was tripped, the full force of whatever ray — gamma? — the stuff emitted was bounced from the three mirrorlike surfaces, thus channeled out the awful little “doorway” of the deathbox. To kill.
The strip of llico hide that tripped the door — the trigger, Cleve mused. The little door, neatly fitted into a groove on either side so that it swung easily when the cord was pulled, but swung shut immediately the pressure was released — the barrel. The mirror surfaces could be called the firing pin; apparently they made the ray deadly, by concentrating and aiming it. And the rocklight — the ammunition.
It was without doubt the crudest, simplest — and most deadly — gun ever created by imaginative, resourceful man. But it was that — a gun. A ray-gun, on a planet just at the level of smelting iron into steel swords and too-heavy armor! And evolved, not by some ultracivilized nation of warriors, but by a Stone Age people who used the terrible little weapon only in defense. With it, with a few of them. Andor could be conquered, all Andor — by people with sight; their inability to distinguish between inanimate objects, whether sentient or no, was the Oridorns’ fatal disadvantage. It would make them easy prey for anyone with the sense to remain still, were the Oridorns in the open where they could be attacked in any sort of mass.
“How is it the Orisans never acquired any of these?” Cleve asked, thinking of the obvious.
“They know we have them. But we never carry one below. Today one went down for the first time — it was an emergency. You are a friend of Oridorna, and had rescued two of our own and remained behind to fight off their pursuers. We had to aid you. We know of but four connections to Orisana. To our knowledge they have never tried to clamber up the way you came, but it, like the other three shafts, is perpetually guarded by us. When we descend, we take only swords and daggers. We know how vulnerable we are, Cleve, and we know we must never allow the Orisans or the Orimors to have one of these weapons. We also — we also fear, and assume, that someday it will happen. Someday, somehow, it will happen. And they will use it to destroy us, getting more and more to use against us until Oridorna is no more. And then perhaps they will try to make their own.”
“Who manufactures them?”
“The Keeper. I have made none. My father made one, it was to replace one that had ceased to function. We do not know why that happens, nor do we have any idea in advance that it will happe
n.”
“Giving me one — does that mean it must be replaced?”
“Yes.”
“But — you said that he who brings the rocklight from the mountain dies.”
“Yes.”
“Then I cannot take this!”
“You must accept it, it is our gift. I have already begun work on another only a few sleeps ago. It is as simple to make two. The boxes are ready, now. You hold one of them.”
Cleve looked about at their impassive faces, flickering-ly visible in the light of his single torch. “But — that will cost two lives?”
“Oh, no,” Zaide told him. “Only one. The work must be done swiftly, and two may be made at the cost of but one life. It is well spent, you see. It is for Oridorna.”
“You were going to make one anyhow?”
“Yes, Cleve. You see, I am dying. I know it, Zaire knows it, he is soon to be Keeper. And we have told Jaire. I will die, and be greatly honored by my people, and — but we will not speak of that before you.”
And your grandchildren and sister will eat you, Cleve thought. He said, “What does your death have to do with it, Zaide?”
“But everything! As I said, I am dying anyhow. I know it, and we will not discuss how or why. I am old, and I am dying. I decided that I would die as Keeper, and make two of the deathboxes before I go. That way, perhaps Zaire will never have to make one.”
“Oh.” Cleve gazed at the old man, whom he now realized was one of the bravest, noblest men he’d ever met. “Only the Keeper makes the deathbox. And he who brings the rocklight from the mountain dies. And — that is the Keeper’s duty.”
The old man nodded, obviously proud of the ability. “Of course.”
16 - The Eyes of Oridorna
Cleve learned that only the deaf and those with otherwise impaired hearing were “blind” among the Oridorns. A few questions gave him most of the answer to their eyeless sight.
It was sonar; echolocation. It was an active process in which the Oridorns emitted sounds of extremely high frequency, far past the upper limits of human hearing — 20,000 cycles per second. With their highly sophisticated biological sonar, they navigated, simply by generating a sound, then identifying objects and obstacles and their approximate distance by the reflected echoes. Banished forever to live out their lives without light, they lost the reason for possessing eyes, then the eyes themselves. And at some time, probably simultaneously, they developed the echolocative process.
Nearby objects they “saw” in terms of the physical parameters of their own UHF cries, returning to them from those objects. By the same process they were able to perceive size and shape and mobility of the object. A rock or a man standing against a wall could be discerned almost instantly; not until it moved would the Oridorn know by its echolocative sense whether it was animate or otherwise. Cleve had no means of measuring. Knowing something of Eptesicus fuscus, the big, insectivorous brown bat of Earth, Cleve assumed the sounds emitted by Jaire and her people were in the 50,000-cycles-per-second area. They could readily distinguish the shape of objects, although this power was diminished by distance. Given two objects at varying distances from themselves, they established quickly which was the closer — merely by noting the difference in arrival time of the echoes from the two objects.
Fascinated, he experimented, although he was aware that his simple tests were far from acceptable by Earth-side standards, far from what are called “controlled experiments.” Given a rock shaped somewhat like a man and of similar height and width, Jaire could distinguish it as rock, not man, only when she was within about fifteen feet of it.
Herein lay their danger. A man might stand absolutely motionless and allow himself to be approached quite closely by an Oridorn. Worse, if Cleve stood among rock outcroppings, Jaire was hard put to say which was he and which the boulders or stalagmites — and even then, knowing he was there.
God creates, he mused, and God compensates. Or Mama Nature, or Daron, or Prime Mover, or whatever source you choose for attribution of natural phenomena — no matter how unnatural.
The water of these strange people came from the same source as that of the Orisans: slender mountain streams. The Oridorns had wood for torches, which they had taken from slain Orisans. Cleve carefully waited until his slow-burning glim was nearly out, then lighted another from it. True, the deadly little “gun” in his pouch could serve him as a flashlight, of sorts; it emitted a barely visible beam. He felt sure the rocklight in the Cavern of Death in Oridorna must be different from that illuminating Orisana — it was not nearly so luminous, and surely it was far more dangerous. They showed him that its ray would not pass through rock, not even the thinnest shalelike slab. Then they demonstrated what it did to mushroom and bone and llico hide: It blackened and holed them, almost instantly. Since he had decided to keep the deathbox with him, to try by its use to ensure his passage through the Orimors above, he did not want to weaken it by using it for illumination.
On the other hand, he knew that if his torch went out, he would be helpless in the labyrinthine “city” of Oridorna. The darkness was absolute. Only one who has been in a cave deep underground, without artificial light and with not the tiniest aperture for the admission of outside light, can appreciate the existence of total darkness, an impenetrable black deeper than the cloudiest moonless midnight, the most tightly shuttered room.
Cleve lay again on a bed formed by laying the white pelts over the bare stone of the cavern floor. Jaire and several other women were at work, making a white-furred suit for his projected departure from their caverns into the undoubted slashing cold of the mountain-top. In Oridorna as in Orisana, the dark caverns were not cold. He had no explanation. It was not that the air and the rock were warm, it was just that they were not cold, as might have been expected. Perhaps, he thought, it was another property of the rocklight. Or perhaps there was another element within this great, honeycombed mountain that provided warmth. Even the water from the little underground streams was barely cool, warmed as it trickled down from the snow atop the mountain.
Doralan Andrah. Doralan Andrah. Doralan Andrah of —
— of Andor.
He could not remember. He realized now that this was not natural; certainly Gordon on Earth had told him more about Doralan Andrah than he now knew. Certainly the bespectacled, brown-suited man had told him the name of Andrah’s city, and even surrounding lands. It was not just that he had not been imbued, as promised, with Andrah’s memory, Cleve now knew. Nor was it simply a matter of his having forgotten what he had known.
It was not just the absence of a positive, his condition. It was a negative.
Knowledge had been stolen from his mind. Somehow, he had been robbed of what Andorite knowledge he possessed. If that were so, then —
Cleve sat suddenly erect in the darkness.
If that were so, then perhaps Gordon’s organization had provided him with the memories of Doralan Andrah! Perhaps they, too, had been stolen; all had been stripped from his mind save what he remembered as Robert Cleve. The language and customs — these had been hypnotically implanted in his brain; he had learned them, mnemonically, if mechanistically. But the memories of Andrah — those he had acquired, without actually learning; Gordon had explained to him that all Doralan knew would be imprinted on his mind as information was imprinted in the “mind” of a computer.
Cleve pursued the thought, worrying it, tugging it, striving to conduct unexpected raids on secret corners of his mind. He could not lead himself, could not trick himself, could not trap himself into remembering. He knew no names, neither of persons nor of places, save Doralan Andrah. He knew Doralan Andrah possessed power and position; he could not remember over whom or what. He knew Doralan Andrah had an important mission and was dying, and Cleve was to take over this body — as he had — and perform that mission. As he had not. He could not even remember what the mission was.
And with that he dragged, by its slender and tenuous tail, another idea into his roiling brai
n.
Perhaps — perhaps he had been here longer than he knew? Perhaps it was on Andor that he had lost his memory! Naturally, somehow, or … unnaturally. Via hypnotism, perhaps.
Or … sorcery?
Well, once hypnotism had been thought sorcerous, arcane, on Earth. There were still many who feared it with the same superstitious awe that prevented their walking beneath ladders or entering cemeteries at midnight. It was science; a method of making direct contact with the superpowerful subconscious mind. Its applications in medicine, in espionage, in police work, were enormous.
Perhaps … here … sorcery was … science?
He did not like that thought. True, his head was full of Andoran words having to do with magic, respectful words without any hint of semihumorous or disbelieving connotations. But — he could not accept sorcery. That would have to be proved to him.
“Perhaps,” he muttered into the subterranean darkness of Oridorna, “perhaps it has been!”
He jerked his head at the gasp his voice elicited. “Who’s there?”
“Cleve — it is Jaire.”
“Jaire, you must not come silently upon me again. You walk in barefoot silence, and you have three times now shocked me, caused my heart to leap, and cost me several gray hairs by stealing upon me.”
“I am sorry,” she said softly. “What — what is gray hairs?”
He chuckled. “A sign of age,” he told her, “among my people. Like wrinkled skin,” he added, realizing she would know about that; these people were fascinated by textures. Indeed, among them the wrinkled, the skinny — whose skin was thus not smooth and taut — were considered beautiful. Their flesh offered more to the Oridorn sense of touch. In Oridorna, the old had at last come to be considered as beautiful! No woman here disguised her wrinkles.
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